The Game
by sirius-black-oh-checkmate
Summary: She always wins. You either surrender or die. Or you lose your mind. But you can't win. Not against Bellatrix.


**Alice**

She's in my living room. Frank doesn't know. Not yet. He's still at the Ministry, but I'm standing in front of our brown couch staring at the most wanted woman in England, and I'm terrified. More scared than I've ever been. I want to be able to just take her out with a spell and tell the Order I've defeated Bellatrix Lestrange. But she's not the kind of person you can get rid of that easily. Oh, no, she definitely isn't.

I look into her dark eyes and see anticipation and… something else… fear. Just a little.

She stands, feet apart, a smile, a challenge, on her face. She runs her tongue along her lip. A thin strand of hair hangs in her eye. It moves when she blinks. Her wand is held loosely in one hand. She is ready to play the game. The game she has always won.

"Expelliarmus!" I shout, hoping to surprise her, but she had seen something coming. Her unspoken shield charm fires the spell back at me, and before I can do anything, my wand flies out of my hand. I watch in a sort of numb confusion as it sails in a perfect arc straight into her outstretched hand. Her pale fingers curl around it and her dark eyes survey it.

She leers at me and flicks her long hair out of her face. "Your man… he's home." My eyes flicker towards the door. I can hear Frank. He's home, and that's a cause for relief. Or terror, I'm not sure, because if she gets me she'll get him…

"Alice? Merlin's beard, Alice, open up!"

No, no, no, don't come in, leave it, please, Frank, leave it, "Alohomora!" I hear him mutter, and the wooden door swings open.

"There you are-"

His face goes from flushed due to the cold outside, to ghostly pale due to fear in the space of about three seconds. "Alice… I…" he starts, but Bellatrix cuts him off with a slow smile. "Oh, there's not much ickle lover boy can do. I have her wand." I can taste blood in the corner of my mouth; I bit down on it so hard when she called him "ickle lover boy." Franks face goes even paler when he hears she has my wand. He looks at her hand and sees the proof swirling around her slender fingertips, and his hand reaches slowly for his own wand.

"You're only going to do that if you're prepared to watch your darling hurt." Her smile mocks him. Frank is still moving his hand towards his wand. "Oh. You are? You are a bad, bad husband…"

I want him to whip his wand out, hit her with something clever before she can react, but he stops and begins to put his hands above his head. Bellatrix laughs at him, and with

She whips her own wand through the air as she yells the word "crucio!"

I know what will happen before it hits me, but I'm in no way prepared for the pain that follows. I'm screaming, maybe, but the pain's too intense to tell if it's me. I feel like I'm freezing, on fire, freezing again. I can't see anything except red and black and white and red, every limb is being torn apart. I can't remember who I am, where I am, what is happening, all I know is the pain. Then it stops, so suddenly, it's just… gone. I realise I'm lying on the floor, my breath coming in short gasps that don't fill my lungs.

I try to sit up, but the arm I need to help me up gives way.

Frank's face is even paler than before, Bellatrix's is flushed and they are both staring at me. Only one of them is smiling. She raises her wand again and sends another jet of red light in my direction. I duck and it hits a photo of my son Neville. His face has been torn in two by her cruel spell. "Don't you dare hurt him!" I shriek uselessly at her. She smiles. "Oh, no, I can hurt him in much, much worse ways, when he's old enough to feel the pain."

I scream then. Just scream at her. Not words, but a long yell of anger and fright. She looks at me, throughs her head back and laughs.

Frank tries to take advantage of her distraction and pulls back his wand, crying, "Stupefy!" but she's already hit him with the Cruciatus curse. He's down on the floor, twitching, screaming, like I must have been earlier, and the woman is laughing again. I throw myself at her, hands out. I can feel the tears streaming down my face as I jump at her. I'm sobbing, and she's still laughing. I want to kill her then. Because I know how much Frank's hurting, I know how much she can hurt Neville. Somehow, I catch her by surprise. She trips over and Frank's pain stops. Rage shows in her eyes, for a moment, and then it becomes a glint of excitement. She loves this game. I want her to lose it.

I reach for my wand but she snatches it back as soon as she sees my fingers touch it. She picks up Frank's. She has all three wands. There's no way out. Her game is nearly over, and she will be the victor again.

"Alice!" I hear Frank yell weakly from the other side of the room. I can't look at him.

Her eyes narrow slowly as she looks at me. "GET NEVILLE, GET OUT!" I scream desperately, one last time, a plea for him to be safe. And she smiles. "Oh, he won't be getting out any time soon." I want to fight her but I can't.

"Crucio!" she shouts, my own wand pointed at my heart. And this time she doesn't stop. Game over.

**Frank**

Alice is lying there, again, screaming and screaming and screaming. I leap at Bellatrix, try to wrestle her, but there's no real fight left in me.

Her eyes light up in undisguised glee, and she whips out my wand from wherever she got it from, and points it at me. One wand in each hand, one, still concentrated towards Alice, one now pointed at me. She advances on me, slowly, a cat about to catch its prey. Then she smiles, almost playfully, and with a shout of "crucio!" pain overwhelms me and I fall into the fire.

**Alice**

The pain has become my friend. Well, not exactly a friend, but not an enemy, not anything worth fighting. The fire burns inside me but I accept it. It is just, quite simply, there. There's no way away from it and I can't avoid it.

It's been there forever, has it not? I can't remember a time without it any more. Was there a time? No, no, there wasn't. Suddenly it is gone. A screaming is echoing from somewhere. I wonder where. It has stopped too now, the hollow reverbs of someone's yells.

I hear a laugh. I wonder whose it is.

Then I feel relief. The pain is gone. I realise the pain was never my friend. It tricked me. It made me accept something untrue, unreal. I sit up. I want to yell at the pain. Then I realise that pain is not a person. Someone is hurt… who…. what… I don't know….

"Neville." Someone's voice says. It is a panicky voice. A voice of someone frightened, terribly frightened…. Who is Neville? Who am I?

"HELP!" The voice screams. I feel my mouth move. With a jolt I realise it's my voice yelling for help.

"ALICE!" Another voice yells. Alice? I can't remember an Alice. I can hear more yells, like someone is fighting. Why don't they just give up, give in to the pain, give into this after the pain, this nothing, this blank. It's okay where I am. Safe.

And then there is less. And then even less. And now there is nothing, nothing but a blur, a rush, and then a white, crisp, clean bed and a young boy and an old woman with a hat looking at me like they know me but how can they know me I have never seen them before who are they why are they looking at me who are they?

I look at them.

They look at me.

It fades.

They are there again, the boy, and the woman with her crazy hat. I want to reach out a hand, see if they are real, but I can't, my hand won't move.

They are always there. I like the boy. He seems real somehow. Not like the people in this place with their white dresses and their plastic smiles. The boy's smile is real. There is sadness in it. It isn't a happy smile. His eyes are sad too. But it is a real smile.

There is a shadow sometimes, in the back of my mind, that something isn't quite right.

But I don't know what.

And that is all.


End file.
